Statement of Faith
We believe in the deity and humanity of our Lord Jesus Christ, in His virgin birth during the reign of Caesar Augustus, in His sinless life, in His miracles, in His vicarious and sin-atoning death on a cross by the shedding of His blood, in His bodily resurrection from the dead, in His ascension to the right hand of the Father, and in His personal return in power and glory.
We believe that, for the salvation of lost and sinful men, regeneration by the Holy Spirit is absolutely necessary; salvation is a gift of God, received by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone, for the glory of God alone.
We believe that faith without works is dead.
We believe in the present ministry of the Holy Spirit, by whose
indwelling Christians are enabled to live godly lives.
We believe in the resurrection of both the saved and the lost – the saved to the resurrection of life, and the lost to the resurrection of damnation.
We believe in the spiritual unity of all believers in our Lord Jesus Christ.
We believe that when God created humanity, He ordained marriage to be a unique covenantal bond between one man and one woman (Genesis 1:25; 2:24, 25; Malachi 2:14-16). Therefore, rejection of one’s biological sex is inconsistent with one’s created nature in the image of God (Genesis 1:26; Romans 1:26, 27)
We believe the 66 books of the Old and New Testaments are alone the perfect, inerrant, inspired, infallible, and authoritative Word of God, and are the final and supreme authority in faith and practice.
We believe there is only one God, eternally existent in three Persons: Father, Son and Holy Spirit, who is infinite, eternal, and unchangeable in His being, wisdom, power, holiness, justice, goodness, love, and truth. He alone is sovereign over all things.
We believe God created all things out of nothing, for His own glory and good pleasure, and for the display of His eternal power, wisdom, and goodness; having created all things, God created man in His image, male and female, perfect, sinless, and immortal, and He charged mankind with the governance of the created world, to cultivate it for His glory.
We believe in the historicity of Adam and Eve, our first parents; we believe, though they were created sinless, they did not remain in that perfect state, but willfully and consciously disobeyed their Creator’s command. Consequently, sin entered into the world, and death, through sin, spread to all men. The guilt of Adam’s sin and fallen nature transfers to all mankind.
Doctrinal
Identity
The beliefs found in the Statement of Faith above will be considered primary doctrines at Arise Classical Academy. Secondary or divisive doctrines and issues will not be presented as primary doctrines. Beyond the primary doctrines articulated in the Statement of Faith above, we respect and acknowledge the primacy of the family and local churches and refer any secondary doctrinal questions to parents and local churches for final authority.
We embrace the historic tenets of biblical Christianity as articulated in the creeds of the early church and the major confessions of the Protestant Reformation. All Board members, school administration, school faculty and staff subscribe without reservation to the Statement of Faith and actively serve Christ under the authority of a local Evangelical Protestant church that is in essential agreement with this Statement of Faith.
Aesthetic Vision
The apostle Paul instructs us to set our minds on that which is true, noble, just, pure, lovely; we are to meditate on those things which are of good report, virtuous, or praiseworthy. As a classical and Christian school, Arise Classical Academy has particular duties in this regard; we have been entrusted by our school parents with the responsibility to help train and discipline the minds of their children. We understand that the loveliness and nobility enjoined by the apostle involve more than just “spiritual” truths, and that our duty as a school included the discipline of aesthetic education.
We therefore affirm that the triune God contains within Himself all ultimate loveliness and beauty. As His creatures, therefore, we are to serve and worship Him in all that we do in the beauty of holiness. He has created us in His own image and requires us to strive to imitate Him in all that we do, and this includes the duty of understanding our responsibilities of appreciating and creating objects of loveliness.
In the education we provide, we therefore deny all forms of aesthetic relativism. At the same time, we affirm our limitations as creatures. This means that in any work of art containing true beauty, only God knows exhaustively all that is beautiful about the work, while we see the beauty only partially. Because different human observers see different “partialities,” this creates an illusion of subjectivity. Because our vision of the beautiful must necessarily be partial, we seek to instruct our students to make all aesthetic judgments in humility. At the same time, we want to train them on their responsibility to make grounded and informed aesthetic judgments, rejecting all forms of principled ugliness or aesthetic nihilism.
We seek to teach the importance of aesthetic standards in all activities associated with the school, striving for that form of excellence suitable to each activity. This obviously includes a strong emphasis throughout our curriculum on the fine arts—music, painting, sculpture, drama, poetry— with the attendant responsibilities of the students including study, meditation, and memorization.
But our emphasis on aesthetics also extends to more mundane matters: the cleanliness and decoration of classrooms, student dress, athletic competition, handwriting, etc. In all this, we aim to teach our students the reasons for what we require, and not just impose the bare requirement. As a Christian school we want to particularly avoid all forms of pious or traditional kitsch, aesthetic frauds which can evoke a sentimental and superficial aesthetic response.
The standards we use in determining what we consider to be aesthetically valuable include, but are not limited to, conformity to the standards of Scripture, historical durability and the approval of many minds over generations, a balance of complexity and simplicity, dignity, metaphorical strength, harmony, subtlety, the power to evoke love of truth and goodness, the art of concealing art, acuity or craftsmanship, an ability to reach and exceed standards while honoring and employing them, avoidance of formulaic clichés, and wisdom.